I have a confession. I have a new favorite Disney snack. Forget the Dole Whip. Skip the popcorn. This is it: the Karamell-Küche Gingerbread Salted Caramel Buttercream Cookie at Epcot’s Germany pavilion. In my opinion, this is the best treat on property! Read along and at the end, I’ll even give you a recipe where you can make this amazing treat yourself! It’s easy enough to make that the kids and I will be making them at home!
I love the fresh Caramel Popcorn inside the Karamell-Küche kitchen. It’s chewy and delicious and they make it fresh every day. The smell of that amazing caramel popcorn when you’re walking by is enough to draw you in. And you can make your own version at home! But besides the popcorn, there’s another amazing creation lurking in this display case that just might surprise you.
Karmell-Küche Gingerbread Salted Caramel Buttercream Cookie Sandwich
The Gingerbread Salted Caramel Buttercream Cookie Sandwich (what a mouthful) has the Caramel Popcorn beat, hands down! I love gingerbread, even when it’s not the holidays. Add buttercream and caramel to the mix and you’ve got a fantastic cookie.
Taking a closer look, this is a soft gingerbread, not crunchy. Definitely not one you would build a gingerbread house with.
When examining the finer details of the buttercream, there is a slight brown tint to it, suggesting there’s more to it than just buttercream. Perhaps a bit of caramel mixed in. And drizzled on top of that buttercream are lines of that tasty Werther’s caramel.
Cutting into it, we can see that the cookie is definitely chewy. This is so good, I have to try making it for myself!
Copycat Gingerbread Cookie Sandwich
With the prime inspiration found, I knew that I had to try my hand at making these cookies myself. My two kids love to be my kitchen helpers, so I enlisted their aid in creating the perfect copycat cookie sandwich. With the ingredients assembled it’s time to get to work. Below is the process of making the copycat cookies. The full instructions for how to make these are at the end of the article! Here’s a step-by-step process:
My daughter helped measure all the dry ingredients.
And for the wet ingredients, we creamed the butter, sugars, molasses, and vanilla until it was light and fluffy.
And then mixed in two eggs. Eggs can be difficult sometimes; lots of concentration is needed.
Once everything was combined, we stirred in our dry ingredients.
Next, it was time to bake the cookies! I preheated my oven to 375ºF. I left them in a relatively round shape to bake.
About 10 minutes later, the resulting cookies looked good, but not quite what I was going for. They are a little too “domed” compared to the cookies at the Karamell-Kuche.
I know just how to fix that. With a little parchment and a plate, I smashed the next set of cookies down before baking.
Before…
And after, success! Perfectly flat across the whole cookie, and it has those crags in the top that I’m looking for. Plus by smashing them down a little, they only took 8 minutes to bake.
While those cool, it is time to make the salted caramel and buttercream. I dismissed the kids because I didn’t want them working around boiling hot sugar.
The white sugar goes into a pot to melt.
Then butter is added. To make it salted caramel, we add heavy cream, vanilla extract and salt.
The result is a creamy and not-at-all gritty caramel that is still loose enough to pipe.
And for the buttercream frosting, it’s as easy as mixing butter and powdered sugar.
Then I’m going to add some of that homemade caramel I made above and mix it in! Whip it again just to get that light caramel flavor into it. Sampling is highly encouraged at this point!
It’s time to assemble! But first, let’s head into Epcot! That’s right, I made my cookies to do a direct taste test comparison between the original cookie and my recreation. I packed up a cooler with all our ingredients and we set off for the Germany pavilion!
Our first cookie goes down, then our salted caramel buttercream is piped on top.
Followed by a generous portion of that caramel drizzle. That looks good.
Yum! This is going to be delicious! On the left is a Gingerbread Salted Caramel Buttercream Cookie sandwich from the Karamell-Küche and on the right is our homemade version!
My homemade version on the right has the same flat profile and crags on the top of the cookie.
I might have been a little more generous with my buttercream filling and caramel drizzle. Looks like I got the color pretty close though.
It might look pretty and all, but how does it taste?
Amazing! My cookie has a sharp ginger bite with a more mellow molasses flavor, just like the cookie at the Karamell-Küche. My caramel drizzle is a little bit darker than theirs, so I would cook it over a lower heat next time.
But the flavor? The flavor is outstanding! This is definitely a cookie I will make again and it will be perfect to share this holiday season!
Copycat Gingerbread Salted Caramel Cookie Sandwich Recipe
So say you can’t get out to Epcot to try them yourself, have no fear! I showed you that it isn’t all that scary, so now you can make the recipe! Here’s how you can make these copycat cookies yourself at home!
Gingerbread Cookies
- Dry ingredients
- 4.5 cups of AP flour
- 1.5 Tbsp of ginger
- 2 tsp of cinnamon
- 3/4 tsp of ground cloves
- 4 tsp of baking soda
- 1 tsp of salt (if using salted butter, omit this ingredient)
- Wet ingredients
- 1.5 sticks of room temperature butter
- 1 cup white sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup molasses
- 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
Instructions
- In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, whip butter and sugars together. Once fluffy, mix in molasses and vanilla. Finally, add eggs and combine.
- After the wet ingredients are combined, mix in dry ingredients until a dough is formed. Refrigerate for 4 hours, or overnight.
- Preheat oven to 375F. Separate cookies into 60g balls. Smash down slightly, using a plate and parchment. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool completely before assembly
Salted Caramel
Ingredients
- 1 cup of white sugar
- 6 Tbsp of Butter
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup of heavy cream
- 1 tsp of salt if using salted butter, or 2 tsp of salt if using unsalted butter.
Directions
- In a heavy pot on medium heat, allow the sugar to melt, but not burn. Once melted, add the butter and stir. Let cook for 2 minutes.
- Finally add heavy cream, vanilla extract and salt. Let it cook for an additional minute, then allow to cool.
Buttercream Frosting
Ingredients
- 2 sticks of room-temperature butter
- 4 cups of powdered sugar
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 Tbsp of our caramel sauce from above
Directions
- Whip the butter until it’s light and fluffy, then slowly add powdered sugar until it’s all mixed in.
- Add vanilla extract and a couple tablespoons of caramel to the buttercream and mix again.
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